Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

DEFCON 3

By -

President Trump exits Marine One at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after being diagnosed with COVID-19 (photo via Fox 5 New York). 

Military DEFCON 5, Market DEFCON 3

After President Trump announced on Thursday that he and the First Lady were being tested for COVID-19, Twitter users made Tim Hogan’s tweet about spotting Boeing E-6 Mercury planes go viral. Quoting Hogan’s tweet, Alexandra Chalupa described the purpose of that plane in alarming, but essentially correct, language. 

(more…)

In the Works

By -

I just happened to notice that Amazon, of all companies, is actually about 80% done with what could be a fantastic head and shoulders pattern. It isn’t complete until the neckline is broken, of course, but still, this merits close attention, particularly because there are some interesting options strategies that could be used to exploit a down-move.

AMZN

Post-Debate Election Risk

By -

With the first Trump-Biden debate of 2020 in the books, we’ve headed into the final stretch of the 2020 election. Let’s note the election risk and then look at how to protect against it. 

Election Risk

A couple of weeks ago, a Finnish business journalist asked me which candidate would be worse for the market. I told her that the risk in the near term wasn’t either candidate winning, but neither candidate winning: that the best thing for near term returns was a decisive election night victory. In a Wednesday article (“As Election Looms, Investors See Uncertainty. They Don’t Like It.”), investment professionals interviewed by the New York Times made similar points. For example:

(more…)

Gamma Gamma Bo-Bamma…

By -

Over the weekend, I introduced Slope to some DIX pics. Now I would like to introduce you to the GEX which is short for “gamma exposure”. Basically, it’s the numerical sum of all the long gamma minus all the short gamma on S&P500 options (not SPY).

If you’re not familiar with gamma, here is the official definition:

“Gamma is the rate of change for an option’s delta based on a single-point move in the delta’s price. Gamma is at its highest when an option is at the money and is at its lowest when it is further away from the money.”

According to their whitepaper they calculate it as follows:

(more…)